Page 89 - JCAU-4-2

Chinese Exceptionalism in Architecture and Urban Design Wong

2.3 Spaces in Beijing and China beyond move us away from a simplistic category of
Professor of architectural history, Cole neoliberal freedom to a situatedness of
Roskam, clarifies early in the book that uneven economic and social agendas. He
“reform was not an exercise in neoliberalism” analyzes that Chinese exceptionalism is a
(p. 17) [7] . He cautions against the blind spatial project from the start, and as is known
application of the global neoliberal turn in the today that it continues to implicate spatially.
1970s and 1980s, and instead notes the
specificity in Chinese society, including its 3. ARCHITECTURAL TYPOLOGY
socialist roots and authoritarian ruling. He AND AUTHORSHIP
writes, “reform… was above all, an act of The last section concludes spatial
[7]
unprecedented creativity” (p. 250) , as he observations and elaborates on how the three
details the innovative state apparatuses and books use architectural and urban design
public-private collaboration models that came examples in further explicating Chinese
out of a spirit of experimentation and exceptionalism. Here, architecture is defined
improvisation, birthing spaces of unlikely through a cross-examining reading between
consequences. As he perceptively calls early the interrelated lenses of typology and
on, “architecture helps to produce authorship.
contributing citizens of societies and the Architectural historian and critic
social structures upon which people depend, Anthony King’s perspective is drawn to
regardless as to whether those structures are unfold the infrastructural qualities of
capitalist or socialist in their ideological architectural practice, which as he defines, the
composition” (p. 14) [7] — simply put, former both shaped and is shaped by the latter.
architecture is not the same as ideology. In Building and Society, he poses first and
Echoing this quote, Roskam’s spatial analysis foremost two questions at once: “What can
does not try to pigeonhole spaces into global, we understand about a society by examining
ideological patterns, but digs deep in its buildings and physical environment? What
everyday practices in which common people can we understand about buildings and
transform and adapt spaces into individual, environments by examining the society in
concretized pockets of expediency, which they exist” (p. 1) [8] ? Rather than
makeshift-ness, and contingencies. Roskam treating architecture as aesthetic objects, King
offers a phenomenal account of a post- reacts by highlighting architecture as
socialism landscape brimming with Chinese simultaneously socially conditioned and
characteristics. One of the most illustrative conditioning society. This influential stance is
moments is his analysis of the early reform undeniably essential in understanding these
choreography that the government carefully authors.
curated to foreign guests coming to The interrelated questions of
experience socialist China. It includes architectural type and authorship surface in
exclusive hotels with elaborate amenities, discussions of an architectural infrastructure.
those that were considered bourgeois luxuries Type and authorship are in fact two faces of
in the then impoverished China. He takes the same question for architecture. Consider
fascination in the ideological chasm Mario Carpo’s provocation of conceiving an
contained in an urban space, documenting the authorial ambition of architecture parallel to a
spatial protocols such as hotel security and process of technological advancements [9] ,
built barriers of access, segregating the together with Anthony Vidler’s invitation to
proletarian locals from foreign visitors. He think typologies through a need for an
contrasts between elaborate hotel interiors, ontological validation [10] , both questions
such as the East Addition Dining Room of point to a consolidation of architectural
Beijing Hotel, with the outside geography expertise and institution of knowledge as
suffering from the Cultural-Revolution- politically motivated. These authors tackle
induced poverty. This image he constructs this double emergence of architectural type

AccScience Publishing 4